on Apr 28th, 2007Flex vs Silverlight – Flex wins round one, goes open source
Update : I just checked out what Silverlight is capable of on their site http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/ and its really great. The silverlight runtime is just over an MB in size, download and let the magic begin. Now don’t think Im being partial, but look at circumstances, Flash has been around for aeons and one doesn’t expect a technology that came out years later to just measure up to a giant like flash. Just like nobody expects an OS released a year later to measure up to Vista. But guess what Silverlight just completely blew me away, it will, to you too. Recently, my friend and I were discussing technology that will keep top firms alive and when we reached Adobe, we immediately remembered the Macromedia acquisition and how they cemented their presence for the next decade or so. Somehow we never thought WPF/E will deliver and it did and that too in style. Its worth a look if you haven’t looked already.Â
Adobe has revealed that their Flex technology will go open source. The essential parts like the compiler and debugger are going open source , so all the flex developers can be relieved. I don’t the more essential Flex Builder will go Open anytime soon though. Its just obvious that not many are that fluent with ActionScripting and MXML, and the builder is what makes flex such a powerful resource. I have read countless blogs from people who come from web dev backgrounds, who have found the design and implementation of Flex apps very confusing. Its exactly like the .NET and Visual Studio dependency. I know very few .NET developers who can do without Visual Studio, its isn’t even supposed to be done that way. The decision is an attempt to let the developer community contribute to the flex platform and make it better, also probably give Apollo the push it deserves.
Microsoft Silverlight, aka WPF/E is a contender against flex for its capabilities of building RIA’s. Considering that it just released its SDK to developers , it will be worth watching which technology picks up turbulence and is accepted world wide from the developer community. Both these technologies promise a seamless desktop/web experience, the one where you can work offline and drag drop things to your desktop from your browser and sync with existing apps on your desktop. Considering that both have downloadable runtimes, developer SDK, local filesystem access and proprietary development environments will make these two very close competitors. People are already expecting MS to announce silverlight to be open in the forthcoming MIX.
Even though I have never worked with WPF/E, I have heard enough praises about its look and feel, ease of use and great build and deploy tools. Microsofts Expression is the recommended tool for Silverlight development and we all know how MS likes to spoon feed developers. I have done Flex and even made a POC of types for my personal page and its a cinch to develop simple forms and everyday applications. I would like to get my hands dirty with Silverlight too to be able to talk about it(Calling all MS execs to give me a free license ).
